Once again, we’re back at the shoreline or more like: I can’t seem to leave the water’s edge. As summer continues to wind down, I keep going back to explore my kind of deep easy listening: “resort music.” My mind and ears keep heading down to the early works of Moonriders’s Masahiro Takekawa and his idea of Paradise: とにかくここがパラダイス.
Known affectionately as Kujira (due to his tall height), Masahiro Takekawa, born in Zushi, Kanagawa, Japan, in 1950, is distinguished for his versatility with the violin (fiddle), trumpet, and mandolin. A graduate of Rikkyo University, Takekawa began his professional music career as the violinist for Hachimitsupai (alongside F/S fave, Shinsuke Honda). After the group disbanded, Masahiro joined Moonriders from its creation, contributing not only with his instruments but also as a vocalist and composer.
In the early ‘80s, alongside Yellow Magic Orchestra and Southern Allstars, it was this band that would rival them in popularity and critical stature. Yet for all their influence, Moonriders had a decidedly leftfield sense of creativity and experimentation that frequently found them exploring or creating works that weren’t easy to pigeonhole or admire (at the onset) but were quite simply much easier to digest.
You see, some of the Moonriders’s most fascinating works were those done “outside” the group. Perfect examples include Keiichi Suzuki’s 宇宙からの物体X, a project exploring Rundgren-esque jet-set art pop or the weird Sandinista-esque trio, Artpop, led by Ryomei Shirai, Hirobumi Suzuki, and Masahiro himself. If you count Keiichi Suzuki’s collab as “Beatniks” with the late, great Yukihiro Takahashi, it’s all these other offbeat side projects where they could really dig into what they like that would eventually lead them to perfectly accompany Steve Hiett’s “spiritual surf music” on Down On The Road By The Beach by distilling their seaside influences into his simpatico stylings.
For all of YMO’s extracurricular activities in pop, looking to expand on their influence in European electronic rock and musique concrète, I think it was Moonriders’ influences that led them to explore another wiggier side of music with more American roots – exotica and surf rock – and create something equally as ear-catching. It’s this influence that would yield Masahiro’s interesting turn as a solo artist.
It all started with a proposition: “Would you mind composing a song for Asahi Beer?”. Masahiro was tasked with creating a commercial song that would give life (or at least a soundtrack) to Asahi’s then-most famous creation: Asahi Draft. Aiming to celebrate the 100th anniversary of their famously “super dry” original recipe, Masahiro came back with “とにかくここがパラダイス” (Anyway, This Is Paradise), a futuristic exotica-influenced commercial song that touched on Asahi’s Osakan roots and pointed at the demographic it wanted to reach—those living the “marina lifestyle” popularized in the growing New Music (which we know as City Pop) style. Like Toshio Nakanishi’s Water Melon Group, Masahiro hinted that Japanese audiences could be interested in more space-age pop updated to a New Wave era.
“とにかくここがパラダイス” became a huge hit in 1982, and based on its popularity, Pony Canyon implored Masahiro to capitalize on it by exploring more of that sound on a full-length record. What they expected was something of an easy-listening record in the style of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. What they got—as Masahiro expected—was a Moonriders-esque leftfield idea of what they thought “resort music” could be. Names like Danny Hamilton, Richard Rodgers, The Ventures, and Marty Manning instantly come to mind and appear on the record. とにかくここがパラダイス—at least in half the songs the record would cover—appeared like an exploration of a certain forgotten easy listening.
It’s that slice of Americana found at the beach where moonlit serenades were followed by sunrise surf music. Danny Hamilton’s “Diamond Head,” as reimagined on Masahiro’s “ダイアモンド・ヘッド,” took on the edges of Japanese techno-pop. Richard Rodgers’s MGM pop fantasia, “Slaughter On 10th Avenue,” as imagined on “10番街の殺人,” engages in turbo speed, sped up to approximate something Les Paul (the guitarist) would have done on double-speed tape.
The latter-day influence of Joe Meek rears its head as Masahiro and friends (all members of Moonriders join him on this album) reimagine The Ventures tracks like “Mariner No. 4” with a new pseudo-space age affinity. Ditto for their reworking of the Twilight Zone theme. In these pieces, とにかくここがパラダイス sounds like a reframing of a time before rock-n-roll’s experimentation got a bit too self-serious. Yet, what forms the meat of the record are those original tracks that point to a new direction only their generation could take.
“Young Sailing” strikes that intriguing Balearic mix of electronics and sun-kissed dance music that Masahiro and Moonriders friends would flirt with more esoterically on 1984’s brilliant Amateur Academy. Tetsuro Kashibuchi’s other contribution, “バルカン特急” (or Balkan Express), brings to mind the quasi-Mediterranean balladeering sound he’d explore more fully on his solo works like Hotel Lilas. Even less chill and more experimental tracks like “海の百合” written by Keiichi Suzuki have a spirited air of imagination.
The album ends on “渚のアンビエント・ミュージック” (or Ambient Music On The Beach), and one doesn’t know whether Masahiro accomplished what Asahi asked for—background music for a “super dry” outing—or whether he got closer to his idea of “paradise music.” One thing’s for sure, whatever Masahiro did here does put you in the mood for an icy beverage for 30-something odd minutes.